Gore Verbinski gives an update on Bioshock

June 30, 2010 - By Liam Goodwin

Last August28 Weeks Later director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo was hired to replace Gore Verbinski as director of Universal’s Bioshock movie as Verbinski could not commit to the lengthy overseas filming (Gore decided against directing Pirates 4 for Bioshock). Since then we haven’t heard anything about the game adaptation, however in a recent interview Verbinski confirmed the film was still in the works, it is just a matter of getting the budget down.

“We’re working trying to make it. The problem with BioShock was: R-rated movie, underwater, horror. It’s a really expensive R-rated movie,” he explained. “So we’re trying to figure out a way working with [director] Juan Carlos [Fresnadillo] to get the budget down and still keep so it’s true to the core audience, you know? The thing is it has to be R, a hard R.”

“We don’t want to dumb it down, we don’t want to make it PG-13. We want to keep it really edgy, and it’s a huge bill,” Verbinski insisted.

When asked if he might take over the directing reins from Fresnadillo should the latter opt not to make BioShock after all, Verbinski dodged it. “We’re really down the road with Juan Carlos and right now it’s really a budget thing and how to keep the integrity and keep it a Hollywood movie because it could balloon. It’s a lot. Our first budget was extraordinarily high and we’re working on it,” he said.

Apparently the budget spiralled to $160 million, which is an average cost for a blockbuster these days, but no studio wants to spend that amount on a R-rated horror.

Juan Carlos Fresnadillo is a capable director, and Universal will need one. Bioshock takes place in an alternate 1960, and in the game the player takes the role of a plane crash survivor named Jack, who must explore the underwater city of Rapture, and survive attacks by the mutated beings and mechanical drones that populate it.